Ken and Sons bills itself as a friendly neighborhood market and that’s true. They are very friendly. Ken’s is a family run business — it really is Ken and his sons, and also Ken’s two daughters-in-law who also work in the market. I love exchanging a few words with Ken, who is always cheerful and upbeat and has something good to say. The store could not be more convenient; for a relatively small neighborhood market they carry a lot of things. They have fresh meat and produce and coffee and tea; they have soda and frozen pizza and cheese and milk and eggs. They have trash bags and cake mixes and lots of cereal. They have candy and ice cream and ice and paper towels and paper plates and laundry detergent and a well stocked first aid department should you be on vacation and develop a migraine headache or suffer a boo-boo. They have juice. They have Kerry Gold butter. They have beer. They have lemonade. If you’re staying at one of the nearby hotels or vacation rentals like the Sandy Cove Inn and Red Door Vacation Rentals or the Inn at the Shore or the Tides by the Sea and you forgot your toothbrush, you can pick one up at Ken’s.

Our friends often remark how fortunate we are to live so close to the U Street Pub and the Osprey Café. It is very nice to be able to walk to a nice place to eat and drink. My go-to thing to order at the Osprey is either the Hungarian mushroom soup or the house-made granola with fresh fruit, but it’s hard to resist their daily specials; as I am writing this, I see banana bread French toast and an omelet of the åday packed with pork sausage, mushrooms, onions, queso fresca and chile verde. The Osprey has a full bar so you can get a bloody mary or a mimosa at 9 a.m.

The U Street Pub is a perfect neighborhood restaurant. We go there a lot. Some of our friends enjoy meeting us there. We’re all suckers for the shrimp po’ boy sandwich and the clams or mussels is part of it. The U Street Pub is a place where the servers behave like they know you even if they don’t really know you. They make you feel at home, that is if your home has an awesome selection of craft beer on tap and cool funny signs and surfboards as décor. My favorite sign they have at the U Street Pub says something like “You don’t have to be married to get a room in Seaside.”

My neighborhood is super friendly. I know most of my neighbors’ names. I know the names of the kids who live on the street and I’m happy to live on a street that has kids. I also know the names of most of the dogs living on the street; there’s Madelyn and Jackson and LaRue. I will say it’s tricky to be incognito if you’re living in this hood just because it is so friendly. I’m pretty sure our neighbors all know who we are because my husband plays the saxophone.